ignorant

I'm a slow learner, but it took me years to realize that baiting people for compliments is a slippery slope. It never achieves the results you're looking for.

I would dangle the line and hook and say: 'I wish I had a better singing voice,' 'I'm not as attractive as he is...' You know, that crazy stuff? Two years ago, I was riding around in a car with an extremely smart friend of mine. Her verbal skills seem effortless and she is embarrassingly well-read. That would be embarrassing for me, not her. I'm a stacker. You know? I buy new books, stack them by my bed, and seldom read them. Craziness. Anyway, one might get the feeling that my friend is unaware of her intelligence and hyper-aware of it at the same time. She was using 'smart-person speak' to comment on something that happened. I can't remember the exact gist of it, but it went something like this: "I don't understand his editorial principles without coming to terms with his lexicographical tenets, his capacity for labor, the degree of his knowledge, his sense of his own capacities, and his tendency to inconsistency." Ok, to be fair, it wasn't even close to being that pedantic, but that's how it seemed at the time. There was a moment of silence. I flipped on the blinker and made a right hand turn. After a bit, I said something stupid like "Wow, I wish I was that smart," or something just as pathetic. She turned to me and said "You're not unintelligent, Scott. You're just ignorant."

After a moment of silence, I think I said “Thank you,” even though I felt like I'd been punched in the gut. To be fair she was right, for if you look in the dictionary, there it is: Ignorant - lacking information or basic knowledge.

So, if I was going to make one point, this is what it would be: some words carry a wallop of meaning apart from the dictionary's definition. They do. It's a bit like calling someone fat - having a relatively large diameter, or ugly - being deficient in beauty, or a failure - having a lack of success or even arrogant - having or showing feelings of importance. I mean, I'm certainly not unintelligent - as was made clear by my smart friend - and because of that maybe I understand that labeling someone as ignorant is just a bit of a slam - even though I know in my heart that my smart friend would never dream of hurting my feelings. So how can I know this when she seemed so unaware of it? Maybe I yield a different kind of intelligence, or maybe she simply grew tired of me fishing for compliments. I was trolling for a big shiny salmon and she handed me an old muddy boot. Some folks resent being played. Yeah, that's probably what was going on. Damn those smart people. They're so much more difficult to manipulate. I'll have to come up with a new strategy.